


Weight of Stars

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Destroy Ending, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Shepard has had to carry Kaidan out of the fire. Garrus wonders why this keeps happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weight of Stars

The cloning facility on Virmire. Saren and his Geth attacking, and the entire compound shaking under the assault. Shepard’s legs ache from running to reach Ashley in time and then stopping dead when he has to make an impossible calculation.

_“I’ll make sure this bomb goes off, go get Ashley!”_

_“You know how important this is, go get Kaidan!”_

Either way is surely a death sentence for the other, but no matter what else he’s managed to accomplish, Shepard can’t be in two places at once. Garrus and Liara look pained, but they’re thinking the same thing he is – they can’t risk losing the bomb.

Shepard turns on his heel, and they go back the way they came. “We’re on our way, Kaidan, hang tight!”

Kaidan curses; he gets two words into trying to change Shepard’s mind before the gunfire in the background amps up, and Shepard recognizes the pained gasp of a soldier who just got shot.

“We’re almost there, Kaidan. Kaidan?”

Static. His legs start to burn, then.

Back at the bomb site, Kaidan is barely conscious in the water, a biotic barrier flickering around him, and Shepard is ready to shoot Saren out of the damn sky then and there.

He doesn’t manage it. Saren is a slippery bastard and to be quite frank, Shepard is too distracted by the Geth trying to target Kaidan and the bomb to get anything better than a dozen useless shots to Saren’s shields. Garrus and Liara handle most of the Geth and Shepard does everything he can to stay between Saren and Kaidan until finally, the Normandy descends overhead and Saren slips away.

“I can stand,” Kaidan slurs as Shepard pulls him to his feet. He slumps hard against Shepard though, and it doesn’t look like he was able to get much medi-gel around his wound before; blood is still slipping down the plates of his armour. Shepard glances at the bomb, closer and closer to detonating.

“Let’s go.” He waves Liara and Garrus to the ship, then bends to lift Kaidan over his shoulders. Kaidan’s only protest is a groan of pain before Shepard’s running. His heart’s twisting, but they’re already pushing the envelope, there’s no time –

The least he can do now is make sure Kaidan survives.

 

* * *

 

The showdown with Saren made a wreck of the Council chambers. Rubble and dust are all over the place. The damage probably isn’t as bad as it is in the Presidium, though. And Shepard isn’t actually sorry for making the Council’s work just a little harder.

Nearby, Kaidan is sitting on the ground, leaning back against a piece of a caved in wall. His visor’s cracked, but he only seems injured below the waist.

“We got ‘m,” he says, still trying to catch his breath. “Everyone okay?”

“Could go for a nap,” Garrus says offhandedly, although he has some blood running down from his shoulder. “Shepard?

Shepard drags himself to his feet. “Nap when I’m dead – they’ve got to believe us now. Can everyone stand?”

Garrus hoists himself up with his good arm. “More or less. We should see how the fleet’s doing.”

Kaidan takes a little longer to get off the ground. He staggers, but Shepard grabs his arm before he falls forward, steadying him. “Thanks, Shepard. So… How are we climbing out of here?”

Shepard glances around. There’s a pile of stone and metal that might make a pretty good ramp to the cambers proper if it doesn’t fall out under their weight, but…

“You might want to get that leg looked at,” Garrus says, voicing Shepard’s thoughts.

“It’s fine. Mostly.” Kaidan shifts his weight a little, but Shepard is still supporting most of it.

He aches all over, but Shepard is ready to pull Kaidan up the slope if he needs to. He adjusts his hold on Kaidan’s arm and back, pausing when he hears a metallic groaning above them. “I don’t like the sound of that,” he says, bending down. “Let’s get out of here before more of this place comes down on top of us.”

“Oh, again?” Kaidan murmurs as he’s lifted over Shepard’s shoulders.

“Almost like you planned it like this,” Garrus says, taking the lead.

“Ha, ha, Garrus.”

Shepard breathes a laugh as they climb over the rubble. Already they’re cracking out ‘saved the galaxy and lived’ jokes. He doesn’t get the chance to say it before something snaps above them, and more of the ceiling comes raining down.

Garrus throws out a curse that doesn’t make it through the translator and makes one last jump and roll to safety. Shepard’s escape is a little more awkward; shards of glass bounce off Kaidan’s back before a slab of metal rocks the floor and sends him and Shepard to the ground. Garrus has to drag them along a few more feet, but they avoid getting crushed.

“That was close,” Garrus sighs, “but I think we’re good.”

“Kicked Saren’s ass – kicked a _Reaper’s_ ass – and made Ash proud just in time to get buried,” Kaidan says. “What a way to go.”

“We’re safe,” Shepard says. Ash and dust have clouded his visor, so he pulls his helmet off to search for their remaining medi-gel. Kaidan tugs his off, too, lets it roll away as he stares at the broken ceiling.

“Hope she saw all that,” he says quietly.

Garrus salutes the ceiling. “There’s to you, Ash. Maybe keep an eye on these two, in case Shepard has to carry Kaidan out of the fire again. Maybe keep a running count.”

Kaidan laughs dryly, barely wincing as Shepard spreads medi-gel over the shot in his leg. “Thanks for that. And before… I know you didn’t want to leave, I-“

“This victory is as much for her as it is everyone else,” Shepard cuts in. He grabs Kaidan’s hand, their gloves sticky with blood. “The most important part is that we’re here, alive, and we’re going to stop the rest of them, too.”

Kaidan nods, squeezing back. “Yeah. You’re right.”

 

* * *

 

Kaidan is closest to the burning Cerberus shuttle when the robot busts its ways out – and that’s what it is, the false skin and clothes burned away to reveal a metallic body. It grabs Kaidan by the neck and Shepard freezes, because regardless of their tension, of how tired or uncertain or angry Kaidan is, Shepard knows that thing can crush Kaidan’s neck or beat him senseless before Shepard can reach them.

It takes the beating route. Shepard’s pistol doesn’t stop it from smashing Kaidan’s skull against the shuttle. Kaidan is limp before the second hit, and only after that does the bot drop him and turn its attention to Shepard – just in time to get blasted by his shotgun instead.

He dimly hears himself order someone to grab the robot as he runs by it. His focus is on Kaidan, on another of his squad lying –

Not dead. His helmet’s cracked, broken along the back and where the robot had gripped him, but he’s breathing. Or, Shepard think’s he is. He doesn’t react when Shepard calls his name and pulls him off the ground. Shepard grits his teeth and runs for the Normandy’s shuttle bay, careful with the weight across his shoulders.

There had been a moment, a break in the tired set of Kaidan’s eyes, where it looked like there was something that could be salvaged, revived between then, and damn if he was going to lose it.

 

* * *

 

For about fifteen seconds, it looks as though they’re going to make it. Liara is on his left, Kaidan on his right, and for about fifteen seconds they’re running and dodging everything while countless others fall around them. Then a Mako is blowing up and flying back towards them. Shepard ducks, just missing it. Behind him – for a split second, there’s nothing, but the Liara’s appears out of the smoke, and Kaidan is limping behind her. Liara’s armour is spattered with blood, most of it someone else’s, and there’s a piece of shrapnel driven so deep into Kaidan’s leg that it’s a wonder he’s standing at all.

“Get to cover!” Shepard shouts, pointing them to another flipped Mako as the Reaper fires again, and again.

Liara is gripping her side, but that seems to be the worst she has. Shepard’s stomach lurches when he sees another shard of metal wedged into Kaidan’s visor – but Kaidan pulls his helmet off to reveal no injury. The relief isn’t enough to slow Shepard’s heart at all.

“Normandy, do you copy? We need an evac!”

Kaidan’s grimace turns to an outright frown, but Joker is quick to respond, and Shepard doesn’t give him the chance to argue before pulling him to his feet.

“Shepard-“

“You need medical attention,” Shepard says firmly. He prays in the back of his mind that he can be forgiven for hoping that the Reaper targets anything – anyone – but the Normandy.

“A lot of people need medical attention!” Kaidan counters and Shepard steers him, half carries him, to the Normandy.

“Liara, take him-“

“No,” Kaidan says, even as Liara takes over as his support. “Shepard, don’t – don’t leave me behind.”

There’s something broken in his voice, in his eyes – a desperation Shepard hasn’t heard anything like since Virmire. But adrenaline will only let Kaidan go so far, and they haven’t come this far just so everything can be ripped away here.

“This isn’t goodbye,” Shepard says. Kaidan reaches out and Shepard grips his hand as though that alone could convince him. This isn’t the end. “I’m coming back. I love you Kaidan, and I _will come back_.”

No matter what. This isn’t the end.

“I love you, too,” Kaidan says, almost an admission of defeat. “Be careful, Shepard.”

He can’t promise that much, no matter how much he wants to. Kaidan knows it, the pain written across his face as the Normandy begins its ascent, because behind Shepard is the beam. Behind him is a massacre.

And there is a moment as Shepard sprints for it, before all he can see and feel is white fire, where he finds himself hoping again.

 _If you’re there, Ash,_ he thinks, _keep an eye out_.

 

* * *

 

Three Spectres on one job isn’t exactly rare, but there’s a sizeable list of things that are more common. Unless any one of them is assigned somewhere else, though, Shepard, Garrus, and Kaidan largely ignore the statistics and find themselves on the same tracks.

Most of the time they don’t do so because one of them has dropped out of contact, though.

The bright side is that most of the mercs and criminals who’ve been trying to profit off the desperate and recovering in the wake of the war don’t actually know much about concealing or guarding their jamming towers.

EDI’s voice filters through the static as soon as the tower comes down. “You should now be able to receive any signals in the area. I can detect one nearby.”

Shepard grimaces as he turns away from the tower. The compound they’d traced Kaidan to is mostly reduced to a smoldering skeleton of whatever it was before. “Let me guess – from somewhere under the rubble?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll try hailing him,” Garrus says. Shepard listens in, but there’s no response.

“Let’s find that beacon,” Shepard says, already on his way to the building. EDI contacts them again after a moment as she narrows down the precise location.

“Do you need another set of hands?” she asks as an afterthought.

“We’ll let you know, EDI, thanks.”

Most of the rubble isn’t too large for Shepard and Garrus to handle. It isn’t long before they find the distress beacon, either – and, only a few feet away, a hatch half buried underneath a chunk of stone nearly too heavy for the two of them to lift. But not quite.

Inside the apparent safe room, Kaidan blinks at the light flooding in. Then recognition passes over his face, and he smiles.

“Hey,” he says softly, “there you are.”

“There _you_ are,” Shepard says as he drops into the room, surveying the situation quickly. The walls are cracked, but seem far from giving out. Kaidan sits on the floor against one, his armour in a pile next to him, and one eye swollen shut.

“The eye’s not as bad as it looks,” Kaidan says quickly. “Had a migraine to make it worse earlier.”

That doesn’t do much to reassure Shepard, but the important part is that they’ve found him in one piece. More or less. There’s a wound on Kaidan’s left calf that looks like it could use more medi-gel.

“What happened?” Shepard asks as he pulls his own supply out.

“Mission accomplished, pretty much,” Kaidan explains, shrugging. “Mercs are gone – dead, I mean, along with their stuff – but they had a back-up. Knew I couldn’t disarm all the bombs in time, so a found a secure spot and, well. Was kind of hoping that the blast would take out the jammer, but I guess not.”

“No,” Garrus chimes in from outside. “But you can thank me later.”

“Uh huh.”

“Can you stand?” Shepard asks.

Kaidan grimaces. “Not well. The leg actually is about as bad as it looks.”

“Figured. Is it too late to tell you not to make a habit of this? Hold on.”

Kaidan, for his part, doesn’t protest to being carried over one shoulder while Shepard climbs out of the hatch.

Outside, Garrus is waving to the Normandy. He makes an odd, half snort-half sighing sound as Shepard adjusts his grip on Kaidan’s thigh. “I have to wonder – why do half our missions end with Shepard carrying you out of them?”

“I think you’re just jealous,” Kaidan replies. “Not that my daily to-do always includes getting shot in the leg, if that’s what you’re implying.”

The banter continues, warm and familiar, as they board the Normandy, and Shepard lets it flow. He’s content with listening and feeling the pulse under his fingers, strong despite the blood loss Kaidan likely suffered over however long he was actually in the bunker. Once they reach the elevator, Shepard carefully lowers Kaidan onto his own feet. Kaidan immediately leans in to him, taking as much weight from his left leg as possible.

“Have I ever told you,” Kaidan says into Shepard’s ear, “that you have a great ass?”

Garrus groans. Shepard catches an eye roll, but it’s an exaggerated, friendly thing. “You could have waited until I was out of the elevator to put him down.”

“Jealous,” Kaidan repeats. Then, as the elevator opens to the crew deck and they make their way to the med bay, “Thank you. Knew you’d show up eventually.”

“Of course,” Shepard says, pressing a kiss to the corner of Kaidan’s uninjured eye. “I always will. No matter what.”

**Author's Note:**

> First ME fic, I ended up making my own fix-it. The last scene takes place post-destroy, but where the Catalyst isn't a little shit 100% of the time and does discriminate between Reapers and other synthetics. 
> 
> I'm quite happy for getting it done, it's been a while since I've written.


End file.
